Monday, October 7, 2013

Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Commander General Suleimani And His Role In Iraq, An Interview With The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force Commander
General Qasim Suleimani is a rather infamous figure in Iraq and the Middle
East. The general has been blamed for organizing attacks upon American forces
when they were in Iraq, helping to put together new governments in Baghdad, and
now he’s running Iraqi fighters into Syria. The man is a jack of all trades
involved in espionage, covert operations, and power politics. He’s rarely
talked about in public however, which was why Dexter Filkins’ recent article for the New Yorker profiling the general was quite revealing. Here now is
an interview with Filkins about General Suleimani’s role in Iraq.

Recent image made by the Badr's militia showing Gen. Suleimani and American coffins in the background (via Phillip Smyth)

1. General Qasim
Suleimani was an early supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini, which led him to join
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in 1979. The next year he was fighting in the
Iran-Iraq War where he eventually rose to be a division commander. He witnessed
hundreds of his friends and comrades die in that conflict. Do you think that
gave him a life long interest in Iraq, and a desire to not see that country
become a threat again?

I think that’s right. Suleimani, but Iran more broadly, were
deeply traumatized by the Iran-Iraq war, and they vowed never to allow anything
like that to repeat itself.

2. Suleimani seemed
to follow a two-track policy in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Overall,
what did he want to do to the American occupation, and what were his goals with
the new Iraqi government?

I think Suliemani—after concluding the Americans were not
going to invade Iran—decide to bleed the Americans as much as he could. At the
same time, he worked to ensure that the Shiites succeeded in Iraq. I think this
made for a sort of yin-yang policy that was sometimes at war with itself. But I
think it’s safe to say that Suleimani helped kill a lot of Americans.

3. One example of his
political strategy was his involvement in the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).
After the Coalition Provisional Authority took over responsibility for Iraq in
2003 it created the IGC. You discovered that it was actually put together
through negotiations between the State Department’s Ryan Cocker and Suleimani.
How did the two work out the Council members, and what was each hoping to
achieve?

It’s pretty amazing; the IGC was essentially the product of
a joint American-Iranian negotiation. Ryan Crocker was at the center of it; he
told me never gave the Suliemani veto power; for instance, the Iranians didn’t
want Ayad Alawi. But he sometimes agreed to Iranian requests if their
objections involved someone the Americans regarded as non-essential.

4. On the military
front, the Qods Force began supporting a number of Shiite militias against the
Americans. Many in the U.S. believed that Moqtada al-Sadr was Iran’s main
proxy, but Suleimani actually didn’t like working with him. Can you explain his
dislike for Sadr and what alternatives that led the Qods Force Commander to
search out to confront the Americans?

This one’s pretty easy, I think. Muqtada is a very
independent leader, and I think this frustrated Suleimani. The result were what
the Americans called “Special Groups,” i.e., militias that were under more
direct Iranian control.

5. One tactic that
Suleimani unsuccessfully employed to undermine the U.S. occupation was to
encourage the flow of Islamist militants into Iraq via Syria. This seemed to
blowback upon the general in two ways. First, what did the Islamists end up
doing in Iraq, and what are they doing in Syria now?

Well, I think the real crazies started blowing up Shiite
mosques and the like—the very people the Iranians were supporting. They made a
sectarian war in Iraq. They are now doing the same in Syria.

6. Washington knew
about all of the general’s machinations in Iraq, and finally decided to
retaliate starting in December 2006. What kind of operations did the U.S.
forces launch against the Qods Force, and how did Suleimani retaliate?

U.S. Special Forces captured five Quds Force officers in
Erbil. I think the evidence suggests pretty conclusively that Suleimani
retaliated by ordering an Iraqi militia (a Special Group) to kidnap and kill
five Americans in Karbala less than a week later.

7. That was quite an
escalation form arresting Qods Force membersto them killing U.S. soldiers. Did
the Americans consider raising the stakes after that, perhaps a cross border
raid into Iran or anything like that?

Yes, they did. But they figured in the end that it would be
too easy for the Iranians to escalate the war, which they didn’t need.

8. General Suleimani
seemed to like the overt and covert battle with the U.S. in Iraq, and there was
some indirect communication between the two via intermediaries and text
messages. What were some of the more notorious comments the general made to the
Americans?

Well, I think the most colorful one came in 2006, when
Sulimani appears to have sent a note to the American command, following the war
between Israel and Hezbollah: He said: “I hope you have been enjoying the peace
and quiet in Baghdad. I’ve been busy in Beirut!” A sense of humor, you might
say.

9. Many Iraqis
believe that Suleimani is involved in all the major negotiations between the
ruling parties in the country. That actually seemed to be true after the 2010
parliamentary elections. The winning lists were deadlocked for months in talks
over whether Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would return for a second term.
What role did the general play in breaking this stalemate?

Suleimani himself broke the stalemate between the Iraqis, by
persuading Muqtada al-Sadr’s coalition to join Maliki’s government. That
clinched it.

Suleimani helped convince Sadr to support Maliki after the 2010 elections assuring him of a 2nd term (AP)

10. Now that the
American military has withdrawn from Iraq many in the West believe that Iraq
has fallen in with Tehran. That’s not quite true as shown in the relationship
between Premier Maliki and Suleimani. What do the two think of each other?

I think they do not like each other, but at the same time I
think Maliki feels compelled to do many things the Iranians tell him to do.

11. Today the
general’s main concern is Syria. You wrote that he has a command post set up in
Damascus where he orchestrates part of the war. He has drawn on his ties in
Iraq to varying degrees of success to help with this. One major project is
ferrying weapons and supplies from Iran to Syria through Iraq. Who did
Suleimani contact in Iraq to help him, and who answered his call?

Good question. I am not sure. Essentially, the Maliki
government allows the Iranian planes to fly over Iraqi airspace unimpeded. One
crucial figure in all this is the Transportation Minister, Hadi Al-Ameri. For
years, Ameri was the head of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia with very close
ties to Iran—so close that Badr fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq
war.

12. Just as important
is that Iran is bringing in its allies to support the Assad regime, which
includes Iraqis. What kind of command and control does Suleimani exercise over
them, and what are they doing in the war?

The exact command relationship is not clear, but it is quite
clear that Iran is instrumental in the recruiting, training and moving of the
militias into Syria. So I think the Iranian role is substantial.

2 comments:

Take these comments and translate them to the civilian ministerial side after 2006---Why Ministries were off-limits to the civilian stabilization and reconstruction efforts. Why the PRTs were created as a bandaid targeted only at the provincial levels (but disconnected from the NDP, project/service alignments, etc..). Why Min of Health hospitals were viewed as extermination centers by Sunnis. And on.

The Old Man in the Mountain role is as ancient a story in this region as the other 1,001 tales.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com